Cable giant Charter loses domain dispute

Charter Communications, an American ISP and cable company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, lost an arbitration dispute this week over the name charterbusiness.com.

Charter claimed the domain violated a number of its trademarks and alleged that the owner was using it in bad faith because. The name at one point contained a parked page with a few Charter-related links.

The firm failed to include in its original dispute filing that it had a trademark on “Charter Business Networks,” however. Though it included this information later on, the arbitration panel did not take it into consideration.

Because Charter made such a poor case, it lost the dispute. The panel did not believe sufficient evidence existed for a bad faith ruling.

American loses 16 domains to Apple

Daniel Bijan, a Los-Angeles singer and entrepreneur, recently lost a domain dispute with Apple over 16 domains. In its complaint filed under ICANN’s UDRP, the Cupertino company claimed the names were confusingly similar to its trademarks. Naturally, the arbitrator ruled in favor of Apple.

A few of the names seized are blueipod.com, macbookpro.biz, and macbook.us. Whereas there is often a gray area in many disputes as to whether a domain infringes on a trademark, this was a clear-cut case of cybersquatting. Unsurprisingly, Bijan opted not to fight Apple and submitted to no response to its complaint.

Source | TechCrunch
Photo | Johannes Pape

Cybersquatting plummits to an all-time low

Analysis done by blog Domain Name Wire shows that cybersquatting is at an all-time low.

The site took a look at the number of Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) filings for .com domains. It found that despite an increase in the quantity of registrations, the number of disputes filed has decreased from 1 out of every 7,000 .com names in 2000 to 1 in 20,000 in 2008.

Cybersquatting has become less prevalent for a number of reasons. Companies have been more diligent about registering domains containing their trademarks in a timely manner. Increased awareness about cybercrime and its penalties have also made cybersquatting less attractive.

It will be interesting to see what effect the introduction of gTLDs has on cybersquatting. Personally, I expect to see an increase in the number of cases. More extensions will provide more opportunities for trademark infringement.

Photo | Flickr

School Prayer Controversy Heats Up

In recent news, two school teachers at Pace High School in Florida, USA are under investigation for publicly promoting their religion. The news has caused an upsurge in searches for the school’s website and sites related to the controversy. The school’s website can be found at the domain: pacehighschool.net. If someone types in pacehighschool.com, however, he will be met with quite a surprise.

The latter domain points to a pornographic website, and their Whois information is hidden. The only indication of who might own the domain is that they registered it with a Canadian registrar. Parents and others looking for the school’s actual website have complained, but officials of the Santa Rosa school district and even the Santa Rosa County Sheriff claim there is nothing they can do.

Under the UDRP established by ICANN, individuals and organizations have the right to contest domains that are confusingly similar to their trademarks. But it is unlikely that the school district registers trademarks of the names of their schools. Nevertheless, they could still file a complaint against the owners of pacehighschool.com. It would seem at this point, the school district has nothing to lose by trying and much to lose by doing nothing.

Source: Santa Rosa Press Gazette

Cybersquatting has cost businesses more than £133 million

Going after cybersquatters is expensive. Recent research conducted by the Corporation Service Company (CSC) shows just how must it has cost businesses over the years: £133 million ($220 million USD).

How can companies avoid this expense? According to the CSC, the best remedy is simply to be proactive and register domains before cybersquatters get to them. If businesses were to do this, the above cost would drop to only £600,000 ($1 million USD).

Another tip: remember to renew your domains. Many names are picked up by cybersquatters after being dropped by the original registrants. In some cases, companies have to pursue cybersquatters multiple times after renewing a name and then forgetting to do so again the next year.

The costs were calculated using data provided by third parties who disputed domain ownership through the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

Source | prWeb

Radioshack wins dispute for two domains

In a recent cybersquatting case, a company in the UK Virgin Islands named Transure Enterprise Ltd registered two domains: radioshackl.com and radioshackultimate.com. I am sure you can already see where this is going. TRS Quality Inc, a subsidiary of Radioshack, filed a complaint in early May arguing that the domains violated their trademark. Radioshack has 4,400 stores in the U.S. and 200 stores in Mexico and operates two main domains: radioshack.com and radioshackcorporation.com.

Transure Enterprise used the domains to host links to various sites and services, including sites that are in competition with Radio Shack. To make matters worse, when confronted by Radioshack, Transure offered to sell the domains at an inflated price. Radioshack insisted that it violated their trademark and showed bad faith because of illegitimate usage of the site and the offer of sale.

Transure Enterprise did not respond to the complaint, but the WIPO still went through the normal procedures of a ruling, concluding that the domains were confusingly similar to Radioshack’s trademark and that the respondent acted in bad faith. Therefore, they ruled in favor of Radioshack. As with all of these disputes, it leaves me wondering how much money Transure made before they got caught and if that is their business model. By not responding, they did not even incur any legal costs and suffered no substantial penalties.

Source: UDRPsearch
Photo: Flickr

Tiger Woods loses domain name dispute

In an effort to secure domain names that match the names of his children, Tiger Woods has been filing domain disputes with the National Arbitration Forum. In order to make a case, the award-winning Golfer argued that the names are confusingly similar to the trademark “Tiger Woods”. The arbitrator refused the claim.

The two domains in question were samalexiswoods.com and charlieaxelwoods.com, both matching the names of two of Woods’ children. In the first case the respondent, Leonard Meng Lee, registered the domain on the same days that Woods’ child was born but agree to voluntarily transfer it to Woods after it was disputed.

In the second case, reviewed this month, the panel ruled that, although the domain name matched the name of Charlie Axel Woods, it was not confusingly similar to the trademark “Tiger Woods” simply by being the name of his child. The panel then decided that “Charlie Axel Woods” was not protectable as a common law trademark or service mark. They further concluded that the complainant produced no evidence to the contrary.

Source: UDRPsearch
Photo: Flickr

First .Tel UDRP Disputed Filed

Osram GmbH became the first person to file a UDRP (Uniform Domain Resolution Policy) dispute with the .tel registry this week in an attempt to get the domain osram.tel.

The domain is owned by Russian Yuri A Ivanov and was registered on March 24, 2009.

The UDRP was set up by ICANN some time ago and applies to a number of extensions, including .com and .net. To bring a .tel into dispute, three criteria must be met:

• The domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights;
• The registrant does not have any rights or legitimate interests in the domain name; and
• The registrant registered the domain name and is using it in “bad faith.”

UDRP was used by Madonna in 2000 to obtain Madonna.com from its owner.

How events unfold will be interesting because .tel isn’t like other domains. Dot-tel names are used for communications purposes and aren’t meant to be used with full-scale websites or online advertising. It will be hard to prove that Ivanov is using the name in bad faith as there is no content on it.

Source: Domain Name Wire